Copyright 2000 P.G. Publishing Co.
Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette
July 1, 2000, Saturday, SOONER EDITION
SECTION: EDITORIAL, Pg. A-18
LENGTH: 569 words
HEADLINE:
REAFFIRMING ROE;
THE COURT STRIKES DOWN A BAN ON 'PARTIAL BIRTH'
ABORTIONS
BODY:
When the U.S.
Supreme Court ruled narrowly this week that Nebraska's ban on "partial
birth" abortions was unconstitutional, critics charged that the court
was turning a blind eye to virtual infanticide.
Not so. The 5-4 decision
held that the Nebraska law was so vague that it would outlaw not only
"partial birth" abortions that delivered a viable fetus, but
also abortions in the previability stage. Since the court's 1973 Roe vs. Wade
decision, it has been clear that government may act to ban abortions only after
the point at which a fetus can survive outside the womb (usually reckoned as 24
weeks). The court succinctly reaffirmed that principle in a 1992 decision
dealing with Pennsylvania's Abortion Control Act: In that decision, the court
held that before viability, "the woman has a right to choose to terminate her
pregnancy." After viability, the state may regulate or even prohibit abortion --
unless an abortion is necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother.
Many opponents of legalized abortion believe that viability is an
arbitrary line. Others worry, with some justice, that the "life or health"
standard can be used by doctors to justify a late abortion on vague
psychological grounds.
Even so, according to two decades worth of
Supreme Court decisions, any abortion ban must 1) deal only with post-viability
abortions and 2) provide for an exception for the life or health of the mother.
By those standards, the court ruled this week that Nebraska's ban on "partial
birth" abortions imposed an unconstitutional burden on a woman's right to
terminate a pregnancy.
The law forbade "deliberately and intentionally
delivering into the vagina a living unborn child, or a substantial portion
thereof, for the purpose of performing a procedure that the person performing
such procedure knows will kill the unborn child."
Although proponents of
the law emphasized its use in third-trimester abortions, the statute also seemed
to apply to second-trimester -- that is, previability -- abortions. And while
opponents of "partial birth" abortions focused on a technique known as dilation
and extraction, in which a doctor collapses the fetus' skull, the language of
the Nebraska law and others also could prohibit the more common technique of
dilation and evacuation, in which the fetus is dismembered during the abortion.
It is possible that better drafted legislation aimed at "partial birth"
abortions in the third trimester would pass muster with the Supreme Court. But
the Nebraska law conflicted with the court's precedents, and deserved to be
struck down.
This decision will not end the debate over "partial birth"
abortions. But in assessing this decision, Americans should keep in mind that 90
percent of abortions are performed in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.
Late abortions are such an emotional issue precisely because they occur
near the end of a continuum between conception and birth, and most Americans
agree with the Supreme Court that late abortions are much more troubling -and a
more legitimate subject of regulation -- than early ones.
Unfortunately,
many of the "pro-life" activists who emphasize late abortions are equally
opposed to abortions even in the earliest stages, and won't be satisfied until
Roe vs. Wade is overturned. Given that larger agenda, the Supreme Court is right
to scrutinize supposedly narrow laws like Nebraska's.
LOAD-DATE: July 4, 2000 
